


The Loneliness of Not Being Alone

by wanderlustlover



Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Chromatic Yuletide, F/F, Femslash Festivus, Gen, M/M, Misses Clause Challenge, Multi, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: She still leans in. She can’t help herself there.





	The Loneliness of Not Being Alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tide_ms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tide_ms/gifts).



Soo-Jin never says that it was her plan; 

the preparation of a celebration for a birthday behind a world of crumbling grey walls and metal bars. There’s no reason she would have. The others had smiled knowingly enough when she’d mentioned that it was unfair Sun would still be in solitary through her name day. 

It is not New Years Day, not a day for the increase of numbers, but it digs into Soo-Jin’s soft heart, refusing to let go. A day when they might try to make it easier for each other. Share the littlest they receive at meals. The jobs they are required to do. But Sun sits in solitary. A woman of such unbending strength, and a such sad, broken, lonely eyes. 

They are all alone here. Even in what they build together in the shared cell. Celebrating their liberations from the hands of men. Even cold and starving, even hated and forgotten, they build a small light of togetherness from their aloneness. Having tea in the morning, even if the set is chipped. Playing cards in the afternoon, even if four of them are missing. 

There is an emptiness, like a ghost laying on her, begging for freedom from necessity when Soo-Jin whispers, softly, they could make Sun a surprise. For her birthday. So she isn’t so alone. The other women smiling in a too telling sharp fondness that makes Soo-Jin blush. Giving too much away, but the consensus is clear.

They gather cloth and stitch rough, while Soo-Jin works on finishing a sketch she’d been drawing for days. The perfect fall of Sun’s hair, and uncanny clarity of her dark, dark eyes. The tilt of her head, her eyes, one edge of her mouth. Her best memory of the right features of a Jindo. Their ears and the soft fluffed out coat that seemed impossible to even exist while in such a cold, hard place. 

Trying despite it. Trying in spite of it. To bring some of it here. For Sun. 

When the cell door opens on Sun, back to the wall and eyes blankly forward, even as the guard shouts, “Five minutes!” like she is the worst of dogs, it’s worth it for the surprise that bleeds through the confusion of Sun’s eyes. 

 

~*~

The loneliness of not being alone; 

Darkness and silence is a punishment. Darkness and silence is supposed to drive you mad. Darkness and silence is not entirely ever what Sun has when she’s left in the darkness and silence of solitary. The room, with its four walls and blankets, never becomes anything more than it is. 

But Sun does. Is. 

Somewhere on the other side of the world Riley has headphones and is humming to a piece of music like Sun’s never heard, lost in planning what happens next between her fingers and the slide of keys on a board. Somewhere on the other side of the world Lito is raising a champagne glass and laughing with his lover, and their…friend of some sort, Sun hadn’t quite worked out. 

There’s sun where Kala is. Warm on her face, and Sun can close her eyes, and the chill of her skin, in this room where the coming winter is already spreading its tendrils, will push back. Will become only that golden hum of sunshine pouring warmth over her skin, like a ribbon of low fire. 

She would wrap her arms around her knees and lean in, but she gives the guards nothing. Her body doesn’t move in the slightest. Back against the cold stone wall, where the cold is creeping up and down her spine through the rough, thin prison uniform. 

But she still leans in. She can’t help herself there. Doesn’t want to. 

She leans in, with her mind, into the sunshine that isn’t hers, and the laughter that isn’t hers. Into the easy camaraderie and love that passes through her, as soft as a whisper and as vibrant as though they were her own hands and lips that Capheus uses as he places a kiss on his mother’s forehead and tells her a joke, to keep her smiling while he is leaving home for the day. 

The darkness and loneliness of this cell is only ever as dark and lonely as the other seven places in the world her mind and heart find themselves. Finds herself slipping into their emotions, laughter, love, grief as strong and sure as though it were her own. 

It can’t take the cold from her skin, or hardness from the ground, the emptiness from the room, but it’s better than nothing. Just like the way they smile, when they catch her out of the corner of their eyes, of their mind, is better than nothing. The weight of the guilt and need to do something in their eyes like a frustrated promise, and yet they invite her in any way. 

She can close her eyes, and press her fingers to the glass. Like she always has. 

 

~*~

 _She likes you,_ Nomi says; 

After Sun has opened her present, unable to blink away the tears at the drawing of the beloved dog she so misses and may never see again. After folding herself into Soo-Jin’s arms and finding herself smiling, even as she sniffles in this dark, cold place, that for one second is a little less dark and cold. 

She’s suddenly standing in the cell, looking about as surprised to be there as Sun is to see her over Soo-Jin’s shoulder: Nomi Marks. Tall, with her wavy bright hair, and intensely intelligent eyes. Looking at them with something Sun can read, but can feel: sympathy, and familiarity, and approval, and hope.

Sun raised her eyebrows, incredulously. 

Which was met with Nomi’s own indomitable smile, _And you like her._  
Sun’s expression tightened, but so did her hold on the woman hugging her. 

_It’s not a terrible thing. Sometimes the best things come to us when we think there’s nothing left for us anymore,_ Nomi said, from across the room as Soo-Jin was pulling back, looking at her with a quizzically surprised expression and just enough of a blush Sun couldn’t miss it. 

Sun looked to the other side of the cell, but the room was empty now, and she looked back at the woman beside her. The one who had bribed a guard, and brought her a birthday gift, and who was still here, for four more minutes, even if it was only four minutes before the darkness and silence collapsed in again. 

“What?” Soo-Jin asked softly after as long as she could take of Sun's silent study. 

“Not now.” Sun said in simple declaration. A bare moment’s hesitation, before reaching out to brush a strand of Soo-Jin’s long black hair back against her brow with the rest of it, watching her eyelashes flutter and her gaze dart around in surprise. “It will wait. I won’t be in here forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you loved this! I had a lot of fun being your Secret Yuletide Santa, reading over all the fics of your ship, and your own writing, and rewatching the show in preparation for this lovely event!


End file.
